qti-validator

A one‑class, zero‑dependency micro‑service that validates any QTI 3 XML against the official IMS XSDs and returns a minimal JSON payload that is easy for a Node.js (or any) client to consume.

Build & run

Compile once:

./gradlew build       # produces build/libs/qti-validator.jar

Run the service (default port 5000):

java -jar build/libs/qti-validator.jar

To change the port simply export PORT:

PORT=8080 java -jar build/libs/qti-validator.jar

The validation endpoint will be available at http://localhost:<PORT>/validate.

Examples

Example request

Validate a QTI 3 item (assuming default port 5000):

curl -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/xml" \
     --data-binary @item.xml \
     "http://localhost:5000/validate?schema=qti3"

JSON response contract

Success (HTTP 200):

{ "valid": true }

Validation error (HTTP 422):

{
  "valid": false,
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "<human‑readable reason>",
      "line": 12,
      "column": 34
    }
  ]
}

Deploy to AWS with Terraform

The repo ships with a minimal Terraform configuration under terraform/ that provisions:

• an S3 bucket to store versioned application artifacts
• an Elastic Beanstalk application & environment running the JAR

Prerequisites

• Terraform ≥ 1.5 installed
• AWS credentials exported (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, etc.) with permissions for S3 and Elastic Beanstalk

Quick‑start

# 1. Build the JAR (if you haven't already)
./gradlew build

# 2. Switch to the Terraform folder
cd terraform

# 3. Initialise providers & modules
terraform init

# 4. Review changes & deploy
terraform apply    # add -auto-approve if you want to skip the prompt

# 5. Grab the live URL
terraform output eb_environment_url

The default variables will deploy into us‑east‑2 using the Amazon Linux 2023 Corretto 21 platform.

You can override any variable at apply‑time, e.g. to change region or environment name:

terraform apply -var "aws_region=eu-west-1" -var "environment_name=qti-validator-dev"

By default the JAR path is ../build/libs/qti-validator.jar; if you move the artefact elsewhere pass -var "jar_path=/absolute/path/to/jar".

The service is exposed on port 5000 (or whatever PORT you set via Elastic Beanstalk environment variables) and retains the same JSON contract shown above.